Page 123 of Cast By Flames (Dragon's Breath)
Aidan stiffened next to me. “How so?”
Colonel Melvin pointed at the map toward the Texas panhandle east of Amarillo. “A third of the Kandoran forcesand the three sorcerers are still in this area. They haven’t moved this whole time.”
“How much of their army have we killed so far?” Aidan asked.
“I’d estimate forty percent. The rest are between Texas and western Oklahoma with shields covering them during the day so we can’t hit them.”
“Shit,” I said, rubbing my face. We’d been fighting and exhausting ourselves for twenty days, and we still had more than half of them to face.
The colonel gave me a grim smile. “Honestly, I think we’ve done surprisingly well considering their numbers. I doubt they’ve ever had anyone put up such an effective fight before.”
Kade joined us—from where I didn’t know. “According to the latest translations I’ve completed from my tome, this war won’t last much longer.”
The gray in his hair seemed to have spread in the last few weeks and colored half his strands. He was steadily losing the black, and age lines had begun forming around his eyes. Stress would do that to someone, especially if they were over nine centuries old.
Aidan gave him a hopeful look. “How much longer?”
“They don’t give a specific date.” Kade shrugged his shoulders. “But it hints it will be over before the end of the month.”
We were halfway through October now.
“Any more warnings for us?” I asked.
He crossed his arms. “Only the obvious. The sorcerers won’t come to us until our shield has been broken, and then we’ll have a matter of days to defeat them or suffer atotal loss.”
I shuddered. We couldn’t think of that and had to remain positive.
“We’ll stop them,” Aidan said firmly.
The colonel’s expression was grave. “We’ve been tracking the degradation of the shield. You’ve done a fine job minimizing the Kandoran strikes on it here, but there are some places to the north and south that are down to less than thirty-five percent from the start. I’m realigning some of our forces to assist in those areas.”
Aidan’s jaw tightened. “How much are we losing?”
“You’ll keep a couple of artillery units along your border, but we’re redirecting our patriot batteries and half our troops. I don’t make this decision lightly, but your sections of the shield still stand at seventy to seventy-five percent. From whatI’ve observed, the volunteer soldiers from this area have proven quite effective with their fighting tactics. The same can’t be said for northern Oklahoma and southern Kansas.”
I rubbed my temple, feeling a headache brewing. We’d done our jobs too well.
“What about in Texas?” I asked.
He let out an ironic chuckle. “Oh, they’re putting up a valiant fight. The local volunteers have been more than motivated. I’ve been told they target the infected humans with animal traps, snares, spiked ditches, and improvised explosives. The trouble is they are less effective against finishing falling dragons. Half of them haven’t taken the fireproof potion, only four slayers cover that stretch, and no one seems to be working together.”
“Not many of them made it up here for the dome training except the Faegud,” Aidan said, running a hand through his hair. Aside from those humans who already worked closely with the toriq, none of the rest could travel so far to Oklahoma. It wasn’t entirely their fault.
“Exactly.” The colonel shook his head. “And it shows. Every faction is doing what they want regardless of the rest, and there have been some friendly fire incidents.”
That happened in every war, but this sounded worse than usual. I could see why he was worried.
“Is there anything we can do?” I asked.
He rubbed his chin. “Not at the moment. I’m leaving with some of my guys in less than an hour to see if I can work something out to unify them. The biggest problem is getting thelocal humans and dragons to work together. Hildegard and her son, Lorcan, will assist me.”
Aidan sighed. “I’d go down myself, but I’ll be needed here more if you’re pulling some of our resources.”
The colonel rubbed his chin. “I understand.”
An officer came up, pulling him away for another matter.
“Let’s head to the fortress,” I said, itching to see our son. It had been too long.
